Published by: World Tibet Network News Wednesday, December 17, 1997

BONN, Dec 16 (AFP) - The governor of Tibet Gyaltsen Norbu is in Germany on the first such high-ranking visit by an official of the autonomous Chinese region, the foreign ministry said, confirming a report from a human rights group.

The ministry said the nine-member Tibetan delegation has been in Germany since last Wednesday on a week-long visit during which they will meet representatives from the foreign, economics and cooperation ministries.

The human rights group German Tibet Initiative has called for a "critical and open" dialogue on Tibet, annexed in 1951 by China. The German group said the delegation was here to push Chinese policy in Tibet, where pro-independence separatists have long struggled against Chinese rule.

The Tibetan delegation came here from Norway and was to go on to France. It was invited to Germany by the group German-Chinese friendship and was to focus on economic issues, the ministry said.

The German Tibet Initiative said the main figure in the Tibetan delegation was in fact Yang Zhikuan, vice director of the autonomous region's foreign affairs department.

A similar delegation cancelled a visit to Britain earlier this month because the British government had called for it to meet with pro-Tibetan groups and members of parliament criticial of China's policy in Tibet, the German group said.

German-Chinese relations were troubled last year after the German parliament adopted in June a resolution denouncing human rights violations by China in Tibet.